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The GRIT Consumer Participation in Research (CPR) report is our effort to answer the who, what, when, where, and why of global consumer participation.

Respondents are the lifeblood of market research. Whether it’s qual or quant, surveys or communities, neuromarketing or ‘Big Data’ and everything in between knowing how to reach, engage, and understand people is the very bedrock of insights.

In our interconnected world achieving that goal is in some ways easier, and in many more ways it is harder and little data have existed to help researchers understand this basic question: how do we get consumers to engage with us and what do those folks look like?

Until now.

The GRIT Consumer Participation in Research (CPR) report is our effort to answer the who, what, when, where, and why of global consumer participation. Based on millions of data points across over 100k interviews using a revolutionary random sampling micro survey model developed by Insight Innovation Competition North America winner The RIWI Corporation, GRIT CPR is the tool that researchers can use to benchmark their own efforts in over 200 countries and start crafting new strategies to grow this vital resource: consumer participation.

In short, we now have data on the composition and attitudes of the online population in over 200 countries on participation in research, and by default have just proven the viability of online models globally. Oh, and while we were at it we now have the freshest data in the world on the profiles of internet users, OS, browser and device usage, including surprising new data on the percentage of consumers who take surveys on mobile devices.

How do everyday consumers from every country around the world – that is, average, non-incented Internet users, not just members of a panel or a recruited online community – feel about the experience of being surveyed?

Do they prefer being paid or not? Will they even answer if they are non-incented?

How frequently do they answer surveys?

From what kind of device – desktop or mobile – do these respondents prefer to answer?

What browsers and operating systems do they use?

How do over 200 countries and regions of the world compare on these metrics? Are there similarities or differences in response rates?

Is there a statistical inter-country concordance on one’s desire to take paid surveys? Is there a different frequency of survey participation?

Is there a difference in mobile vs. desktop response? How much?

Is there variation in mobile browser vs. desktop browser or OS?

What do we know about the attributes of the people who respond (beyond male vs. female, or age, for which respondents self-report) and what can be known, in a privacy-compliant manner, using inferred meta-analytics, on this pool of respondents in every country – on matters including such attributes as education level (e.g. have they finished college?) and ethnicity, and on whether or not they have children?

Is there geographic representativeness of the data in selected countries?

To what extent do the findings correspond with external, third party information (such as, for example, the percentage of Firefox users on different devices)?

The goal of the report was to not only answer these questions for the world (and offer limitations on the answers to these questions to the best of our ability), and to offer researchers the opportunity to supplement the data with their own insights and complementary data – so-called ‘data philanthropy’ – but also to suggest norms against which researchers can assess their own data sets in different geographies by, for example, understanding their data sets better in the context of data presented here concerning mobile, desktop, and browser usage among non-incented, country-specific respondents.

This report will detail the results of the groundbreaking initiative, with an in-depth explanation of the methodology and numerous references at the end to answer any questions related to the project. By default that section will go deep in explaining the RIWI process, but for our purposes the goal here was to utilize an exciting new tool to help all stakeholders understand the state of respondent participation globally. We are grateful for our partners at RIWI for volunteering their time and technology in helping us achieve this goal, otherwise it might have been simply impossible to do this due to time, expense, and complexity.

In keeping with the standard established by the core GRIT study, all of the data are available via an online dashboard generously provided by our partners at Dapresy. That means you can go in and drill down to look at all results by country and standard demographics. Need to know the online composition of Albania? We have it. Interested in the percentage of people who participate in surveys via mobile devices in Brazil? It’s there too. Although the report is a fantastic overview of major aggregate findings, our view is that the dashboard will be a resource that researchers globally can use to validate and benchmark their own research with.

As a special bonus for the 1000+ attendees at the upcoming The Market Research Event, they will also find a print copy of GRIT CPR in their attendee bags, as well as in other locations around the conference.

Dapresy also assisted us with developing an online visual summary that is connected to the dashboard; we encourage you to visit it and share it with your colleagues. Here is a sneak peek:

As always, these things are due to the contributions of many folks. Thanks to the entire RIWI team, especially Neil Seeman, CEO, and Alton Ing, CTO, for their tremendous efforts here: the vast majority of this effort is the result of their vision and hard work. Thanks also to Rudy Nadilo, President of Dapresy North America and his team for their generous support in developing the dashboard and summary. Our heartfelt appreciation goes to all of our advertisers, sponsors and partners who support our efforts again and again.

Finally, the GreenBook team deserves major kudos for their ongoing excellence in helping to inform, educate, and support the insights industry. They truly are extraordinary.

GRIT CPR is a tool that is long overdue: we hope you find much value in it.

About Leonard Murphy

Leonard “Lenny” Murphy has been in the Market Research industry for close to 20 years in various senior level roles, most notably as CEO of full service agency Rockhopper Research, CEO of tech-driven start-up BrandScan360, and Senior Partner of strategic consultancy Gen2 Advisors. A major aspect of his work focuses on collaborating with multiple organizations to help advance innovation and strategic positioning of the market research industry, most prominently as the Editor-in-Chief of the GreenBook Blog and GreenBook Research Industry Trends Report, 2 of the most widely read and influential publications in the global insights industry. Mr. Murphy is a key consultant to numerous insight-focused organizations on both the supplier and client side and an advisor to several technology focused start-ups via his consulting practice. He is involved with multiple organizations including the Insight Innovation Exchange, The ARF, NY AMA, NewMR & others. He sits on the boards of several Academic programs as well as numerous companies. He also Chairs and produces conferences globally and speaks about the future of insights and how to deliver maximum business impact at many events annually. He lives in Atlanta, GA with his 6 (yes, 6!) children, Should- be-Sainted wife, a dog and 3 clinically insane cats.

3 Responses to “A New Member Of The Family: The GRIT Consumer Participation in Research Report Is Here!”

A very interesting study and the levels of claimed survey participation seem very high. I could not get the interactive system working at all. I wonder if this is a problem of not being close to the server? One thing I would suggest is you need to be careful interpreting is the supposed lack or relationship between low Internet penetration and survey participation. The key is not web penetration but daily access. You will find in most countries that people have access to the web on a daily basis regardless of web incidence. The key question should have been access to online daily. I wish I could work the interactive because I would love to see the age by participation and medium used. I am sure it would show low survey particpation and mobile usage for over 34’s

[…] A new member of the family: The #GRIT Consumer Participation in Research Report is here! – As mentioned above for its mobile findings (19% of online surveys completed via mobile), this new report provides a unique take on consumer attitudes towards surveys, reaching a less-surveyed audience (51% said they had never been surveyed prior to this study). […]

[…] in research. However, feature phones are not a major feature of online research. If you look at the 2014 GRIT 2014 CPR study you will see that globally, with a sample of over 200K, nearly everybody who did an online survey […]